


Till Doomsday Comes

by EarthsickWithoutYou



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-11-13 03:10:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthsickWithoutYou/pseuds/EarthsickWithoutYou
Summary: An alternate version of the events in the movie Logan, where Jean Grey comes and finds Logan and Charles before they first meet Laura.  Instead of taking the very bleak path that the film's plot follows, a redemptive story ensues as Logan and Jean finally act on their feelings for one another.  Along the way, Logan forms a relationship with his daughter Laura as he tries to help an ailing Charles.  There are new young mutants to be protected, adventures to embark upon, and hope discovered in the process.





	1. Is my heart blind and our love so strange?

Logan groaned and rolled over, nearly landing right on the floor of his tiny room. The bed was a pathetic cot barely big enough to contain his body, never mind provide any comfort from the aches and pains constantly racking him. Logically, he knew he was punishing himself, trying to find some twisted release in the masochism that would take the edge off of watching Charles slowly die. Some bitter, yet welcome catharsis amidst the memories of his long, melancholy, death-littered life, memories that ate at him day and night until the moment when sleep finally forced itself on his mind.

But the masochism wasn’t working. Neither was the liquor, and neither was this hare-brained scheme of getting Charles out on a boat. He could isolate the old man from society and protect the masses from the consequences which would occur if the Professor fully lost control of his powers. But he couldn’t fight fate, not this time. He couldn’t save his friend. Maybe it hurt a little more because pretty much all of his other friends were dead already, or perhaps when you were impervious to death yourself, you got cocky about expecting that same longevity from others. 

Either way, he remained determined to somehow salvage Charles’ last days, make them the best they could be. Charles couldn’t see that, as confused as he was, or at least not unless he was in one of his rare lucid moments. He just thought Logan was shutting him up out of fear, or worse, just out of not wanting to deal with his old mentor. That hurt to think about, too. Fuck, everything did.

He sat up and rolled his shoulders back, feeling the tense muscles crying out beneath his tight flesh. Logan tried for the millionth time to just think of nothing and feel nothing, but it only threw it all back into sharp relief. He limped to the bathroom and turned the shower on. It was too damn hot here for warm water to be acceptable, so it was yet another cold blast of harsh reality. He stepped back out and shook his hair of the initial dampness, not caring about the mess he made. This was hardly the Ritz, anyway. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, heading back to his bedroom to get dressed and begin another tedious day of limo driving. 

If it weren’t for Charles, Logan didn’t even know what would motivate his limbs to keep moving, his synapses to keep firing. 

“Hello, Logan,” an entirely unexpected female voice piped up as he entered the room. Under normal circumstances, he’d have popped out his claws in defensive alarm, but in this case only shock and earth-shaking confusion registered in his reaction. He squinted in the dimly lit room, hazy sunlight sneaking in through the half-closed blinds.

Jean Grey was sitting at the edge of his bed. Her expression was composed, but there was sadness living in her gold-green eyes, in the fold of her hands in her lap, the demure upsweep of her bright red hair. She used to wear her hair up like that when they’d first met, and he actually couldn’t help feeling sentimental for a second. God, that hadn’t happened in a long time.

“Jean,” he managed, his mouth going dry. “What are you doing here?” He still stood there frozen, wearing only his towel and dripping slightly on the floor.

“I’m here for a lot of reasons,” she explained, standing and walking over to him slowly.  
“I know you’re aware that Charles has detected a new mutant for the first time in 25 years. A young girl. And she needs your help.”

Arguments sizzled through Logan’s mind just to be doused by the feelings only Jean inspired in him, against his own stubborn, irascible nature. Patience. Curiosity. Longing.

Why am I the only one who can help? Haven’t I done enough? Hasn’t Charles? The words died out in his thoughts before making it to his tongue. 

It was likely that Jean herself had become aware of the girl’s existence through her similar powers. At that point, it would have been easy enough to check in with Charles telepathically and see what he knew. The pieces fell together easily enough, except for the look of pained concern on Jean’s face.

“I also wanted to see you. Maybe I was waiting for an excuse. In fact,” She smiled ruefully. “I know I was. I needed to know that you were okay, and I waited too long. I’m sorry for that, Logan. What’s happened to you?”

Jean wore an emerald green blouse and a straight black skirt, standing out with her glamor and classiness in these grimy, bleak surroundings. She lit up the room.

“I think I’m winding down, Jean,” he said, forcing a humorless chuckle, as if it was fine with him. “Finally. I think my body’s giving out on me, infected by the adamantium. Breathing, moving, getting things done…it’s harder every day. But I’ve got Charles to look after and that’s kept me going, it’s given me purpose. I don’t know how long I’ll have once that’s done.”

“Logan,” Jean pleaded gently, touching her fingers to the side of his face. He couldn’t believe the waves of anxiety and pain that seemed to slough off of his entire being with that one act of kindness from her. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t forget who you are. You’re an X-man. We can get through this, together.”

“X-Men?” Logan repeated incredulously. He couldn’t believe how powerful her effect on him still was. He hadn’t had his mind blown or felt his heart hammering like this in years, had thought those days were long behind him. Apparently not. “Is that all there is between us?” 

Even though they hadn’t seen each other for so long, it didn’t make a day’s worth of difference to the way it actually felt, the locking of their gazes, the inevitable, instinctual dance of their two bodies drawing closer. They both knew.

“You know there’s more between us. There always has been. And you know why we could never be together.” Her words, well-worn with time and sadness, were still spoken with compassion. Empathy was never her failing.

“After the Institute was destroyed,” she continued a bit shakily, her composure beginning to erode with the force of her emotions, “And most of our friends died, after Scott…I forced myself to keep my distance from you.”

He nodded. How could she stand to look at him, after the way he’d loved her from a distance all those years, making his feelings at times too obvious for comfort? Once Scott was gone, she had all that grief to work through, and his presence surely would have made her life even more of a struggle. Logan had that effect on people.

“I don’t blame you,” he offered, but she shook her head.

“Logan, you don’t understand,” Jean began, her voice tender and aching. His eyes flashed with perplexity and the need to know more, but before she could speak again, they were interrupted.

“Jean!” Charles exclaimed euphorically, speed-wheeling into the room so quickly that Logan winced in surprised frustration. This reunion was throwing him for a loop. Getting the band back together had been the last thing on his mind, and it would also never work. But still, he was almost literally dying to know what Jean had been about to say, dangling somewhere between her mysterious intimations and his previously whole-hearted belief in his own doomed fate.

“Charles,” Jean sang out happily, leaning down to hug the now-feeble professor as he squeezed her with what strength he had left. “It’s so wonderful to see you.”

“I know why you’re here, Jean!” Charles proclaimed with that newly returned confidence of his. “You felt her too. Laura. The girl with mutant abilities.”

“Yes,” Jean confirmed. “She’s not the only one, either. There have been new experiments, conducted by the same people who brought about the near total demise of mutant-kind in the first place. Now they’re using these young mutants as pawns in their own insane plans. And we have to stop them. No one else can.”

Charles nodded excitedly, his spirits rising dangerously high. Logan rushed to throw some clothes on in the bathroom, knowing the professor was going to need his pills as quickly as his fumbling fingers could grab them. No, there was no hope, and there never could be again. Don’t give into hope, Logan warned himself almost frantically. But he could feel some corner of his soul beginning to glow with the light from Jean’s eyes, and it scared him to think he might fall from that same terrifying height again. When you believed you could find redemption, when you let yourself think you were actually worth a damn, that was usually right about the time it all went to hell.

He yanked on his black pants and white button-down shirt, not even knowing if he was going to work today, or exactly what it was he was doing in general. Logan rushed into the kitchen, grabbing the pills before Caliban’s startled eyes. The other mutant hadn’t seen Logan move that quickly in quite a while. It hurt Logan, forcing his body forward like that, but if Charles got too much more excited, his next burst of power would be catastrophic. 

“Take these,” Logan barked hurriedly, shoving the pills into Charles’ hand, prompting the latter to obediently swallow the tablets.

“Calm down, Logan,” Jean insisted, resting her hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be alright. I’m sorry that I stayed away so long, but I’m here now. And I have a plan.”


	2. Clocks don't know what your memories do

Logan and Jean managed to trick Charles into remaining in the compound with Caliban while they went to meet with Gabriela, the nurse who was protecting Laura. Since they arrived in the area of Gabriela’s motel with time to spare before their set meeting, they ducked into a bar to kill an hour and catch up a bit.

“Sorry, this is no place for…a lady of your caliber,” Logan said sheepishly as he opened the door for Jean. She touched her sunglasses with one fingertip until they slid halfway down her nose and chortled. 

“I think I can handle myself,” Jean remarked, sitting down at the bar, “But I appreciate the thought.” When the bartender came over, she spoke right over Logan’s request for whiskey: “Two club sodas, please.”

Logan cocked his head to one side in amused accusation as Jean put her sunglasses and purse aside and turned to face him. “It’s 11am,” she noted. “Don’t make me act the schoolmarm, Logan. Start taking care of yourself.”

“When you’re the only one taking care of you, and you personally don’t particularly care what happens to you, it tends to slip away a little,” Logan admitted.

“Why don’t you just cut out that whole routine right now? Poor, pitiful Logan? I don’t recognize that guy and I don’t need him. Where’s the guy I used to know?” She nodded her thanks to the bartender as their drinks arrived, squeezing a lime wedge into the bubbly soda before taking a small, thoughtful sip. Logan examined his own glass of alcohol-free carbonation suspiciously. 

“He died with the school, I guess,” he answered, trying to remember the first morning he’d woken up wondering why he bothered to do so. “First, when the Professor lost control of his abilities and killed those people. Then, when the mutants, our friends, our students, all began dying off, too, it felt like we just couldn’t win. Like we’d never win again. And I couldn’t save a single one of them.”

“Neither could I!” Jean pointed out. “Still, we’re not the ones responsible for their deaths. You should know that. What happened with Charles was a tragedy, and it wasn’t even his fault. As for the extermination of mutantkind, I’ve made it my business to learn everything about the terrorists responsible.”

Logan’s eyes, intense with grief, flashed as he said, “When mutants just kept dropping dead all over the world, how was I supposed to feel, being almost the last one standing? I don’t deserve to be here if they’re not. And I don’t know who I am without…” He frowned against the instinct to say “without you.” After a beat, he managed, “Without the X-Men.”

“X-Men? Is that all there is between us?” She smiled wryly for a moment before turning serious once more. “Logan.” Jean took a deep breath. “There’s no right answer to how we’re supposed to react emotionally to our people being wiped off the face of the earth.” She held his hand, the warm pressure a lifeline he was clinging to with all that was left of him. “For me, it was more like…the hunger for vengeance. The Phoenix Force inside me began to rise again. I had managed to keep it in check for so long that it took me by surprise. Luckily, soon after that I found Hank McCoy; he’s still alive, too.”

“That resilient blue fur-ball,” Logan chuckled fondly.

“We worked together to figure out how to keep Dark Phoenix from taking me over. Then we started new work, trying to crack the secrets of Transigen’s experiments, their mutant-gene suppressing serum. We made some incredible discoveries, even developed an antidote. Unfortunately, it was too late to save the victims of those initial attacks, but now we’re well-armed against any new plots that Transigen has up their sleeves.”

“They’re the ones behind the recent experiments, behind Laura?” Logan asked, remembering the nearly feral little girl he’d briefly glimpsed with Gabriela. What in hell had those twisted scientist fuckers done to her? How many other children had been tampered with by Transigen? The thought of innocents being subjected to the kind of experimentation he had gone through was enough to turn his stomach.

She nodded, the sunlight wafting gently through the windows and glimmering off of her shiny red hair, now loose and wavy around her shoulders. “That’s why we’ve got to protect Laura, find the other kids that escaped their facility. Transigen will be right on our tail, if they aren’t already.” Jean ran a finger around the rim of her glass, looking up at Logan out of the corners of her eyes. He could tell she was trying to determine if he was going to be all in on this new crusade of hers, or make up some excuse to get out of it.

“Oh, joy,” Logan replied drily, trying to play down his level of commitment. Jean’s kindness, her devotion to protecting fellow mutants, the fearless way she raced into danger in the name of doing what was right…it all reminded him of why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. Why he couldn’t ever seem to fall out. And it was endlessly overwhelming.

“I see that,” Jean said, pointing to his face. “The world’s smallest smile. You miss being in action, making a difference, saving people…don’t you?”

“Even if I did, I can’t make much of a difference in this state,” Logan confessed, the raspy tone in his voice betraying his weak constitution. “Disaster follows me everywhere, and whenever I try to help, it only causes more harm. I must be crazy to even be here now, but I just, uh…I can’t say no to you, Jean.” There it was. Her eyes roved over his tanned, lined and bearded face, returning to meet his gaze, which was so open and vulnerable that she was taken aback and looked away briefly before composing herself.

“Close your eyes,” she commanded him softly, and he got in one “you’re nuts” glance at her patient, lovely face before his eyelids fell shut. It was dangerous, actually. Sleep tried to take him over immediately with the smallest indication that he was prepared to rest. 

It didn’t make any sense, though, his body’s attempts to drag him into slumber. Why should he escape into sleep now? The waking world, where Jean was, had become his dream.

He fought to keep hold of his consciousness as Jean put her hands on either side of his forehead and a sudden jolt of power cut through Logan’s lethargy. All of a sudden, he felt strong and vibrant again. The exhaustion and pain evaporated, and he opened his eyes only to gape at her. It felt as though he were truly waking up for the first time since the adamantium poisoning had set in.

“It’s temporary,” she explained. “I told your subconscious that you felt no discomfort, no wear and tear, and that you were vital and powerful again. Your mind is holding the effects of your illness back because it can’t perceive or process them, can’t send messages out to the rest of your body telling it to keep shutting down. It’ll wear off eventually, and we’ll need to find you a more permanent solution.

He blinked, amazed at the near-effortlessness of her powers. “What about Charles? Could you tell his mind to just forget that he’s got dementia?”

“Your first thought was for Charles, the moment you learned that I could do this,” Jean smiled. “You’re a good friend to him, Logan. But the truth is, even if I did that, his brain couldn’t maintain the deceit. Essentially, the degenerative sickness in his mind would force him to forget to forget about his symptoms.”

“You’ve been honing your powers,” Logan observed, intrigued by her progress, though he was saddened by her inability to help the Professor.

“I found a way to use the Phoenix Force to my own advantage without it taking me over,” she explained. “So if Transigen does try to stop us from saving these kids, things should get pretty interesting. After all…” She ran her finger over Logan’s knuckles invitingly, and he smirked, letting his claws loose in accordance with her implied request that he try them out. The metal wasn’t as strong as it once was, but instead of sluggishly making their way through his skin, they jutted out instantly, smoothly, like they used to. “I’ve got you by my side, too.”

“You don’t need me to win this fight,” Logan corrected her.

“Maybe you need this fight to remind you of who you really are,” Jean answered. His claws disappeared back into his hands as she reached for him. “Come on,” she encouraged him, sliding off of her chair and leading him to the dance floor.

“What are we doing?” He asked, his hands falling to her waist with an instinct as simple as breathing. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began to sway to the quiet, tender strains of a George Strait song that was playing on the jukebox nearby.

“We’re dancing, Logan,” Jean informed him, her eyes sparkling with mischief, amusement and affection. 

“Why?” He murmured in her ear as she sighed, moving closer to him. Through all of his days of miserable chronic pain and the black pit of despair which seemed to loom over him daily, Logan never could have imagined that he would experience a moment so peaceful, yet seductive.

“Because I want to dance with you. It’s not complicated.” 

“Won’t it always be complicated?” Logan asked, confused. 

“Yes,” Jean admitted, “But this won’t be.” She leaned up as if to kiss him, but then jerked back in sudden panic. “Something’s wrong. Gabriela — Transigen found her! We have to go!”

“Come on,” he urged, grabbing her hand as they ran to the car.

When they got to Gabriela’s motel, they discovered the nurse sitting dead in a chair, brutally stabbed by Transigen’s hitmen. “No,” Jean breathed, horrified, tears clouding her disbelieving eyes. The Phoenix fire burst out in her infuriated glare, but she got ahold of herself as if through a great deal of difficult practice.

Logan, sadly all too accustomed to such sights, was soon upending the room, searching for anything that might have been left behind in the scuffle. He discovered Gabriela’s phone, which revealed that she’d attempted to text him for help right when the murderers arrived. “Fuck,” he muttered angrily, pocketing the phone as Jean went running back out to their car.

“What is it?” He asked as Jean paused and stared at the limo. She strode forward and nodded at the trunk, which they opened to discover an eleven-year-old girl, curled up in the fetal position, eyes wide with desperation, terror and rage. She must have crept from a hiding spot nearby and climbed into the trunk for protection, an escape from the scene of this traumatic crime she’d witnessed. Somehow, she’d managed to elude the hitmen’s notice, though she must have been their primary target.

It struck Logan as he considered the way Laura had folded her body into a tiny ball in the constricted space that she’d gotten tragically used to hiding.

“Laura,” Jean said in deep concern, leaning down to speak to the girl. “You’re safe now. We can help you.”

The storm in the girl’s eyes calmed for just a split second before a gunshot behind them made her start to a sitting position. Anger took over as Laura lifted her hands. Four sharp, adamantium claws, very much like Logan’s, emerged. The look on Laura’s face was that of a warrior ready for battle, a look that a child should never have to display.

“Don’t,” Jean soothed, “We’ll handle this.” Shielding Laura with their bodies, she and Logan turned to face the hitmen, who had circled back to see if the child had come out of hiding.

“Oh, you’ve got this handled, sweetheart?” The lead enforcer of this squad, Donald Pierce, smiled mockingly at them. Logan’s heart clutched with fury at the sight of this nervy bastard who had previously tried to enlist his help in tracking down mutants. Tried to get Logan to turn on his own kind. Like so many others, Pierce assumed that Logan was just an animal looking out for himself. Logan revealed his claws threateningly the second he turned to face the Reavers, as the group of assassins called themselves.

He breathed in deeply, feeling the full force of his rejuvenated abilities coursing through him as he readied himself to defend the child, but beside him Jean seemed so calm, a cold smile the only indication of how afraid the Reavers should actually be.

“Leave,” Jean suggested in a deadly quiet voice, but Pierce just laughed. 

“Jean Grey. We know about you. We know you’re unbalanced, coming apart at the hinges because of that whole—” Pierce flapped his hands like bird wings and Jean rolled her eyes — “Phoenix thing inside you. Why don’t you just hand that little girl over and we’ll call it a day, honey? Wouldn’t want you to break a nail, or you know, yourself.”

Jean’s eyes flashed pure, bright gold as she rose off the ground and ascended into the air, arms outstretched. The Reavers all fell to the ground, unconscious, as Logan ran forward and grabbed the startled Pierce in a tight headlock. 

“Guess what?” Logan asked as Pierce began to lose consciousness, “You don’t know shit. But we’re about to.” He grinned as Jean returned to the ground, his mind already running through everything they might be able to learn from Pierce in interrogation. Logan grabbed some rope from the handy bad guys’ kit the Reavers had on them and tied the asshole up before throwing him in the trunk. By now, Laura was safely seat-belted into the backseat of the limo, numb with shock, her gaze relaxing into emptiness, needing to take a break from the nonstop action.

The death of the nurse who had been her protector had dealt a heavy blow, and Logan knew how that kind of loss felt. When you had that one person who always looked out for you, and when they needed you most, you couldn’t do a damn thing to save them. You just had to watch them die. There was nothing worse than that.

“Don’t worry, kid, you’re safe now,” He said flatly, still nurturing his own barely restored faith in the concept of anyone ever really being safe. Laura just stared at him for a second before turning her dazed eyes to the world outside the window.

************************************************************************************  
Charles was beyond delighted when they arrived back with Laura in tow. He immediately took the girl under his wing, enthusing in bad Spanish about anything and everything. 

“Caliban, do we have a charger that would work with this?” Logan asked, striding into the kitchen, holding up Gabriela’s phone as his pale, bald friend looked up in surprise at his apparently renewed sense of purpose.

“Yes, I think so,” Caliban said thoughtfully, regarding Logan with a severely weirded-out expression. He pulled a basket down from a shelf and looked through tangles of wires before thrusting a charger at Logan. “This should do it.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Logan remarked, eager to plug the phone in and learn about any secrets Gabriela might have been keeping in there.

“‘Buddy’?” Caliban squeaked. As Jean walked by, he took her aside and whispered, “Is Logan alright? He’s acting very strangely.”

“How do you mean?” Jean asked.

“Well, for one thing, he doesn’t look like a miserable bastard who’s about to drop dead at any moment. For another, I think I just saw him smile. I’m worried. Can you keep an eye on him?”

Jean grinned. “I think I can manage that.”

“Any luck?” She said to Logan as she walked into his room, sitting down beside him on the bed. The phone was plugged into a nearby outlet. He took out a pair of glasses and put them on out of recent habit, only to discover that the lenses seemed a little too strong now, having become unnecessary thanks to the help Jean had given him earlier. Before he could tuck them away again, Jean burst out laughing.

“What?” He wondered, brow furrowing. 

“I don’t know,” Jean replied, examining the glasses in her hand. “Maybe it’s how you looked in these, or it could be that you didn’t take the price tag off. I mean…it’s a little cute.”

“I’m not cute,” Logan corrected her insistently, suppressing a smile that soon took over despite his weak efforts. “I don’t do cute.”

“I said just a little,” Jean winked. They stared at each other for a moment, smiling simply, content. Then they had to turn their attention back to serious matters. There were a number of video diaries on Gabriela’s phone.

They watched in near complete silence, awestruck by Gabriela’s crusade to save the children victimized by Transigen’s experiments, enraged by the abuse and theft of childhood they saw captured in the shaky videos. As they watched the children’s mad dash for freedom, panic on their behalf made Jean and Logan join hands, gripping each other tightly.

When they had reached the end of Gabriela’s logs, Jean leafed through some of the papers in a file folder the nurse had packed in her traveling bag, and took pause when she got to the information about Laura. 

“Logan,” Jean said in disbelief, showing him the report, which detailed all of Laura’s basic stats. Age, weight, height, the fact that she’d been endowed with healing abilities and had her skeleton grafted with adamantium…and where they’d obtained the DNA to make her what she ultimately became. 

He blinked down at the name on the page, trying and failing to process the shocking reality. “They used my DNA. She’s just like me.”

“It’s more than that,” Jean pointed out. “Given the way that they created Laura…Logan, she’s your daughter.”


	3. How can you complicate a kiss?

“Fuck,” Logan muttered, ruffling his hair anxiously with both hands. He tried to absorb the information that he had a child, but Jean’s revelation seemed to just bounce right off of his pores. It couldn’t be.

“We have to get her away from here. Get her to safety, and most of all, far away from me. She can never know I’m her father,” he insisted, standing and beginning to pace. “I can’t imagine a worse sentence to hang on a poor, innocent kid than having me as a parent. No way.”

“Logan,” Jean cajoled softly, walking to him and pulling his hands away from his head. He stopped in his tracks at the feeling of her touch and let a deep breath out. “Stop being so hard on yourself. I think you could be a great father. I also think that you and Laura both deserve a family after all you’ve been through.”

“What she deserves is a father with a life expectancy longer than ‘who knows?’” Logan pointed out, getting frantic again. “She deserves a dad who doesn’t destroy everything good that comes near him.”

“I feel like this is partly my fault,” Jean said woefully. She swallowed hard, collapsing back down onto the bed and staring up at him, garnering his full attention away from his panic.

“How could you say that?” He wondered confusedly. “What’s your fault?”

“It’s my fault that you think so little of yourself, that you sell yourself so short every damn time,” Jean explained. Tears spilt from her eyes and trickled down her pale cheeks. Logan hit his knees before her and wiped them away.

“No,” he whispered.

“It’s true!” Jean insisted, angry with herself — now it was her turn, it seemed. “I’ve let you feel guilty for wanting to be with me, for not being able to get over me. But the truth is…” She jerked to her feet and pressed her hands nervously to her lips before turning back to face him where he now sat on the floor, his bright eyes swimming with surprise and suspense. 

“The truth is, I knew I loved you, too!” The exclamation seemed to nearly break her after holding the words back for all those years. “And I wasn’t brave enough to break it off with Scott. I told myself that I made a vow to him that should never be broken, that it was a point of honor, that I could never hurt him. But really, more than anything? I was terrified of how strong my feelings were for you. Afraid to be so in love with a man who was as unpredictable as me. I hurt all of us out of that fear, over and over again, letting you take the blame for feelings that were just as much in my heart. I could feel that Scott could tell, too. We were in a toxic holding pattern. Now he’s gone, and I miss him every day. His death has nothing to do with the way we feel now, and I can’t force myself to think we’d be taking advantage of his absence somehow, or that I’m betraying his memory now by being honest. That’s too twisted. I just…”

Jean took a few deep breaths in and out, then realized she had sobbed her way through the entire speech and sputtered helplessly, “Do you have any tissues?”

Logan, dually spellbound and astonished, stared at her entirely bereft for a second before he blinked and replied, “Uh, yeah.” He pushed himself up and grabbed for the box of Kleenex on the bedside table, pulling out a few. Almost timid, overcome with respect and reciprocal affection, he handed them to her, gently taking her shoulders into his warm, comforting hands.

“Can you just…give me a minute?” Jean asked, shaking slightly. He nodded, dropping his hands as she scurried out of the room.

Logan was still standing there waiting when the door swung open again. That’s where he had always been, wasn’t it? Standing still, waiting for her. Jean came sweeping in, her eyes still slightly red and her cheeks flushed, but her expression determined. One look between them was all it took to confirm what would happen, and then they were in each other’s arms, downright clinging with fervor and desperation.

As their lips collided, Logan’s hand tangled in Jean’s hair while she held his face to insistently deepen the kiss, his grip traveling to her waist. Years of wanting this came unravelling all at once as he lifted her off her feet and lowered her body to the bed.

The impatient hunger of those first few kisses melted into a slower, molten teasing. Logan pulled back slightly to look into her eyes, the happiest of reality checks. His hands traveled the length of her body, from the tops of her slender shoulders down to her arms, her hips, her long legs, his touch leaving excited goosebumps in its wake, landing finally at her ankles as he wrapped her around him. 

Jean sighed and tilted her head back, her eyes fluttering shut as his mouth pressed against her neck and then her chest. When he reached the first button of her shirt, Jean saved him any excessive trouble and yanked it firmly open, the offending clasps spilling softly to the floor. Logan raised an eyebrow, but Jean smirked. “How much longer do you expect me to wait?” She asked, her voice amused yet sultry. 

Her obvious desire lit a fire in Logan that caused Jean’s heart to skip a beat as he unhooked her bra and caressed her breasts, his lips burning into hers as her fingers went to his belt and slid it away. Between the sensation of his tongue against her own and his hardness grinding against her, Jean was coming apart more hastily with each helpless moment. Sensing that her urgency mirrored his own, and longing to bring her with him right over the edge, Logan kissed his way down her stomach, her breath catching at the enticing suggestion of his attentions. He slowly unzipped and removed her skirt before tugging her panties down using his teeth. Her first reaction was a giggle that immediately morphed into a moan at the sensation of his mouth dragging the fabric down and what he began to do immediately afterward.

Soon after, breathing heavily and quivering, she grinned up at him. “Take your clothes off,” she insisted.

Logan showed his own shirt about as much respect as Jean had given hers, whipping it off and shivering with arousal as she unbuttoned his pants and took the upper hand, climbing on top of him, her fingers splayed against his chiseled abdomen. He gripped her hips as she pressed her damp center against his erection, still trapped by boxers that she mercifully helped him to shed before he went completely insane. “Jean,” Logan said gruffly, cupping her breasts as she lowered herself onto him. She began to move, thrilling to the fullness of him inside her, his fingers brushing against her nipples as she bit her lip, her coppery hair loose and wild around her shoulders. By the time they cried out in rapid succession, sweat beaded their bodies as they fell against each other. 

His chest rose and fell rapidly as she rested her face against his heart, relishing the rapid beat that gradually calmed to a normal pace, the reassurance that he was there with her, her own continual promise to herself that she would help him survive, that they would get to keep this happiness.

“I think we’re going to have to establish some kind of extra wardrobe budget,” he finally suggested, leading her to chuckle softly. “Or just stick with t-shirts.”

“I never really liked that shirt anyway,” Jean joked, snuggling closer to him as he pulled the sheet around them. “Or yours. It was too…restrictive.” She ran her fingers over his cheeks, then his chin, thoughtfully. “This is new.”

“What, you don’t like the beard?” He frowned. “I think it’s very distinguished.”

“It distinguishes you as someone who doesn’t own a beard trimmer!” Jean laughed. “That said, with the addition of a little more taming…I do indeed like the beard. A lot.” She winked and he very nearly blushed, wondering who else, if anyone, ever could make him experience a moment of such specific self-consciousness.

"I like everything about you, Logan," She added, the vulnerable words giving way to a sheepish grin. "In case you hadn't noticed, I've always sucked at hiding it."

"Glad you stopped. I think I was even worse at pretending I didn't want to be with you."

"It's a good thing you were! One of us had to let their feelings show. I'm grateful to you for that honesty, for respecting my choices but not lying about how you felt. It took a lot of strength. Believe me, I know that."

“Did you come here to be with me, Jean?” Logan asked, stroking her back, his mood pensive.

She propped her chin on her hand and pressed her lips together, deep in thought herself. “I came here to see you. Being with you just became irresistible after that. I hope that’s okay with you,” she teased, mock-elbowing him as he laughed. 

“I think I could get used to it,” Logan said, kissing her forehead.

Jean grinned over at him as she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. “I’m just curious…If Logan the cynic can accept the possibility of a relationship that actually works out…what else could you get used to? Is it possible the entire universe isn’t falling apart around you, and that you aren’t personally responsible for every bad thing that ever happened?” He rolled his eyes and she poked him in the chest with her foot, which he grabbed, pulling her willing body back to him. She crashed and burned in her attempt to scowl at him once she was back in his lap.

“Stop trying to change the subject,” she commanded him as he kissed her lips far too suggestively.

“Uh…no,” Logan replied, kissing and gently biting her neck.

“Ugh, fine!” She relented, unable to resist the tide that brought her again beneath his firm, warm body. His smug look made her giggle as she insisted, “But we’re talking about this again later!”

********************************************************************************

When they came back up for air, Logan felt a responsibility to check in on Donald Pierce and begin his own role in interrogating the Reaver assassin. He’d left the fool in the hands of Caliban, one of the more subtly terrifying mutants of Logan’s acquaintance when he had to be. 

“I almost feel sorry for him,” Logan remarked, emerging from a shower and throwing his jeans and tank top on. Jean sat towel-drying her hair on the bed, a casual, peach-colored sundress looking too distractingly good on her for him to ignore. She had to pull her gaze back from his pointed look at her, and then she had to force her eyes away from the muscles in his arms, the various temptations of him hypnotizing her all over again. The effort of staying physically apart, yet knowing that this time it wouldn’t be for long, made both of them smile.

“Almost,” Jean replied tartly and he nodded. Pierce obviously deserved pretty much whatever he got, and it needed to be their mission to derive from that conceited dick every pertinent piece of information about Transigen’s program and planned next moves.

“Exactly,” He agreed, throwing his shoes on. “I’ll see you later?”

“Take the question mark off the end of that sentence,” she murmured, striding up to kiss him. He grinned against her lips.

“You got it.”

When he got to the claustrophobically tiny room, Pierce was tied to a chair, trembling with fear. Caliban merely wandered gently back and forth, his attitude nonchalant, almost bored.

“Okay, take it easy, man,” Logan said to Caliban. 

Pierce scowled. “You’re telling this bald freak to go easy on me? Spare me the favor. You make the world’s most ineffective good cop, ‘Wolverine.’” He spat blood on the floor after layering copious sarcasm on Logan’s nickname.

Logan lay a faux-supportive hand on Pierce’s shoulder and leaned down. “You might want to be more open to accepting any help you can get around here. I mean, as I’m sure you figured out by now, my friend Caliban here has the power to suck up the psychic energy from your fear and build it up into even more fear, creating the ultimate terror, and shoot it right back into your skull. Are you sure you don’t want to start telling us about your little experiments and your missions and shit,” Logan embellished the summary of Pierce’s job with the same disrespect and sing-song tone that the villain had used on him, “before I decide to get less friendly?” He shot his claws out and Pierce, already weakened by Caliban’s mode of questioning, startled.

“You probably don’t want to make any sudden moves when he does that,” Caliban advised, crossing his arms.

“Hey, Caliban, what do you think would happen if you and me teamed up? Combine your fear factor mojo with my ability to you know, snikt? Could be fun,” Logan suggested as Pierce’s discomfort increased appropriately.

An hour later, Logan and Caliban left the room with plenty of intel on Transigen’s latest schemes. “Well, that was easy,” Caliban remarked. “Also, you called me your friend again in there. You’re still being strange, Logan.”

“You are my friend, Caliban. Ever stop to think that you’re the one being weird?”

“I’m always weird. That has nothing to do with it. By the way, what are we going to do with Pierce now?” Caliban followed Logan as the latter made for the kitchen. Logan paused, indecisive.

“Good question,” He admitted. Part of him definitely wanted to lop Pierce’s head off, but another part of him knew that he needed to try harder to rise above that animal urge to hurt and kill, even if those he felt the need to destroy were deeply evil.

“Are you going to consult with your moral compass?” Caliban’s smile was annoyingly knowing as he clearly referred to Jean. Logan rolled his eyes.

“Time was, I would’ve talked to the Professor about it too,” he said. “How is Charles today?”

“Elated, because the child is here, because Jean has returned to you both, and you’re all together now. Yet I fear that his next attack may be even worse after all of this unaccustomed excitement.”

“Yeah,” Logan replied, sharing Caliban’s concern on that count. When they entered the kitchen, Jean was scouring the place for something or other. Charles was chatting a mile a minute to a silent but not entirely uninterested Laura. The young girl sat with her head propped up in both hands, chewing her cereal with a look somewhere between sullen and reluctantly entertained.

Nervousness shot through Logan at the sight of his daughter and he didn’t know if he could really deal with this. But Jean’s reassuring look anchored him and he breathed. 

“Hey, kid,” he said to Laura, sitting across from her. “You like raisin bran?” She shrugged. Eh, he didn’t blame her. Lame conversation starter.

“I tried to find her something decent for dinner, but all you people seem to have is chicken wings, beer, potato chips, and ice cream,” Jean complained.

“Aren’t you underestimating the main food groups?” Logan inquired. “Also, you left out frozen burritos.”

“I like all of those things,” Charles put in happily.

“No beer for you, Charles,” Logan quipped.

“Now you’ve seen Logan’s idea of grocery shopping. If anyone around here wants fruits and vegetables, they’ve got a long wait if they rely on this man,” Caliban explained. “I think I finished the last of the salad today, unfortunately. We weren’t expecting guests, my dear. I’ll head back out for more supplies.”

“Thank you,” Jean said warmly, sensing through her powers the weight of Caliban’s past ordeals, the burden of his particular skill set, and understanding them as only a fellow mutant could.

Laura, not at all fazed by Caliban’s slightly unconventional appearance, shrugged again. But Logan had seen a flicker of light in her eyes when Jean mentioned ice cream.

“What do you think of rocky road?” he asked Laura. 

Soon after, Jean removed the bowl of ice cream from Logan’s hands before he could give it to Laura, scooping about half of it into a second bowl and then placing the more modest portion before the little girl. “That was enough ice cream for a sumo wrestler,” She pointed out.

“Looked fine to me,” Logan replied, glancing humorously at Laura, whose mouth ever so slightly twitched on one side, slowly approaching the ability to smile.

“So, were you and Caliban able to learn much about our enemies by interrogating our prisoner?” Charles asked eagerly. Jean cringed as Logan sighed at the Professor’s blurting this subject matter out in front of their young guest. Laura’s posture stiffened and her eyes darted between them, awaiting the next word to be said.

“We know where Transigen’s labs were located from Gabriela’s videos,” Logan explained. “Now, thanks to that —- I mean, thanks to Pierce,” he corrected himself, omitting a few profane adjectives, “We know where they’ve set up their newer practice. Since they deemed the old experiments a failure, they’ve begun again.”

“Their new goal is to create the ultimate killing machine, a mutant who can simply be pointed at any enemy to achieve military objectives. Quite profitable-sounding, and it really shows what these scientists feel the purpose and usefulness of mutantkind is all about.” Jean’s justified resentment was clear.

“Should we go there and put a stop to their new experiments?” Charles inquired. 

“We’ve got another problem,” Logan segued, “The other children who were subjected to the original experiments, the kids from Laura’s group…they’re still out there, trying to escape, making their way to the Canadian border.”

“We can’t be in two places at once,” Jean added. “So it makes more sense to go after the children and make sure their journey is safe before we turn around and deal with Transigen.”

“They may be right behind us…or ahead of us, though,” Logan put forth. “We’ve got to be ready. It’s obvious that their former test subjects are now their prey.”

“Cleaning up after themselves, as if mutants are just garbage to be—” Charles began an indignant speech, but Logan kicked his old friend under the table.

“Try sugarcoating it a little bit in front of the kid,” Logan suggested, earning himself an acid stare from Laura. Oh, he knew that look. He wore it regularly.

Laura looked at each of them very deliberately before shooting her claws out and wielding them with a fierce expression. Her intimation seemed to be that she wanted to go with them and help to save her friends, help to defeat the Reavers.

“We want you to be with your friends again, honey,” Jean soothed the child. “And I promise you that you will be if it’s at all possible. But we also don’t want you to be caught up in any more violence. You’re too young and it’s completely unnecessary. So if you’d like to come along, you need to agree to stay back when we tell you to. Let Logan and me handle the physical stuff. Okay?”

Laura scowled at first, but seeing the unrelenting, serious look on Jean’s rather authoritative face, she gave in. She retracted her claws and nodded. Laura’s eyes, fiery with barely-suppressed anger moments before, now wandered intently between Logan and Jean as the three sat eating their ice cream. Charles took note of the shifting dynamic and declared, “It’s exactly like—!”

But he didn’t finish the thought. A moment of precious lucidity had descended upon the Professor. Although it seemed to him that the scene had all of a sudden taken on a special feeling of “family,” Charles realized that if he said the word out loud, the fragility of it all might cause an emotional explosion. Such pressure put on a feeling so utterly new and unexpected, so almost impossible and yet perhaps inevitable, would endanger it from coming to fruition. Logan’s nerves were raw, he was still shellshocked by the hand life had dealt to him and mutantkind; Jean, trying to hold Logan up, was still living with the same trauma each day. Powerful persecution, disappointment, personal loss, disillusionment…how did you ever believe again, Charles wondered. He certainly didn’t know how he himself still clasped that tiny shard of hope that always seemed to glimmer for him in the black mist of oblivion. Even if the hope cut you, you had to keep hold of it. To Charles Xavier, here, now, so close to his end, that was perhaps what life was all about.

Seeing the hope personified in the paternal attitudes of Jean and Logan, and in Laura’s suddenly shy and still-exhausted face, Charles abruptly shut his mouth and smiled.


	4. Life is too sweet, and life is too short

Logan and Jean sat staring at Gabriela’s phone, having revisited every one of the courageous nurse’s video diaries. They’d been unable to find any indications of where in North Dakota the other mutant children would be hiding. 

“There’s nothing,” Logan breathed in frustrated disbelief. Jean frowned thoughtfully.

“You’d think there would have been a pretty solid plan in place before the kids escaped. They had to have a hiding place picked out, one that they and Gabriela thought would be safe.” Jean cupped her chin in her hands and curled up closer to Logan on the couch. He put an arm around her shoulders and she melted against him, content there in the eye of the ongoing storm.

Just then, Laura came practically stomping in with a very serious and determined expression. She dropped her travel bag loudly on the floor, making Logan and Jean break apart, startled. Laura reached into the bag and removed several small, thin books that she slapped down on the table in front of them. Jean picked them up and her emerald eyes grew large in surprise.

“They’re X-Men comic books,” she murmured, running her hand over her own representation on the cover, right next to a yellow-spandexed Wolverine.

“Those fucking things,” Logan grumbled, only to be slapped lightly on the shoulder by Jean. 

“Language,” she chided as he rolled his eyes.

“I mean, can you blame me for being annoyed? Half of the stuff in there never even happened, and whatever tiny grains of truth are mixed in just get buried underneath a pile of bad dialogue and exaggeration.” He took one of the other comics and flipped through it, snorting derisively at one image of Wolverine being attacked by Magneto. “Like I’d ever let myself get taken out like a punk by Eric. C’mon, now.”

But Laura didn’t care about Logan’s disdain for the adaptations of the X-Men’s past adventures. She yanked the book from his hands and turned to a specific page, then smacked it back down on his leg, making him flinch.

“Ow!” He stared down at the page, only to see a large-scale picture of a beautiful forest area that was walled all around with military-grade protection. A fortress containing a lovely refuge in nature. And the bottom of the page read, “Eden: a safe haven for mutants.”

Logan rubbed his chin and shook his head. “Look, kid, these stories are made-up. Eden is not a real place; it can’t be.”

“Actually,” Jean said, peering over his shoulder, “We don’t know that for sure. You said yourself that there was some amount of truth to these comics.”

“Okay, we can’t know for sure, but we also can’t bank on this place being real and drag our asses over there just to probably get let down and delayed on finding where these kids really are. I can’t believe Gabriela would’ve filled the kids’ heads with this bullsh—” He corrected himself, saying “nonsense.” It was Laura’s turn to roll her eyes. She pointed to the page emphatically with one finger, then stepped back and crossed her arms, tapping one foot impatiently.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Logan relented slightly, “Even if Eden were real, they don’t exactly give us a specific location, so how would we find it?”

“You are not going to believe this,” Jean put in, astonished, as she flipped to the next page, “But it does include actual coordinates for the location of Eden.”

“It’s probably the lottery ticket number that this comic book writer had in his pocket on the day he wrote the issue,” Logan complained. But one look back at Laura’s unwavering expression somehow made him back down again on his cynicism. 

He looked back and forth between Laura and Jean, who was smiling subtly, a little too smug, and threw his hands up. “Fine, we’ll play it your way. Everyone, be ready to leave in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Jean answered coyly, and Logan couldn’t help cracking a smile himself.

Neither, it seemed, could Laura.

*************************************************************************

“But I should be going with you,” Charles complained as Logan, Jean, and Laura were preparing to depart the next day. 

“No, you shouldn’t,” Logan insisted. “You’ll get yourself killed, and probably a lot of other people, too. Come on, Professor, just stay here with Caliban, this one time, for me? After we get those kids to a permanently safe location and take Transigen down, we can go on that boat trip we’ve been talking about. I just need you to be patient a little while longer.”

Charles’s stressed-out face relaxed into a smile and he addressed himself to Jean. “It’s quite an effect you have on him, my dear.” Jean stepped forward and hugged the professor.

The sweet moment of nostalgic friendship was interrupted by Caliban, who came rushing into the room in a panic. “There’s people outside, and I don’t think they came to offer pleasantries,” he warned. 

“Stay here,” Jean instructed Laura in a tone that forbade disobedience. She and Logan ran outside and came face to face with a tank surrounded by multiple uniformed Transigen goons.

A tall man in his fifties jumped down from the tank and removed his sunglasses, slipping them into the pocket of his shirt and smiling.

“Who the fuck is this smarmy S.O.B.?” Logan muttered irritably, his muscles tensing as his claws emerged. Jean crossed her arms and gave the stranger a pointed look just as imposing as Logan’s demeanor.

“Hello, there,” the stranger began in a posh British accent, squinting at them in the heat of the glaring sun. “My name is Doctor Zander Rice, and I’m the top scientific mind at Transigen. It was my experiments that originated the wave of young mutants you’ve learned about recently, my tinkering with your DNA that resulted in the existence of your daughter, Laura. You know, actually, the scientific bent is a familial trait. I believe you knew my father, Logan. He was involved with the Weapon X program.”

The huge, fake grin on Rice’s face accomplished two tasks: it reminded Logan of the man’s father, and it told him that being a dirtbag was also a familial trait in their gene pool.

“Yeah, I remember your dad,” Logan replied smoothly. “I’m pretty sure I killed him. Interested in following suit?”

“Why are you here?” Jean inquired, trying to at least temporarily pause the violent attack that seemed inevitable.

“I’m here, poppet, because I am very interested in retrieving a good friend and associate of mine, Donald Pierce. I’ll also be taking Laura with me today, and on my way out, just for good measure, I plan to murder the rest of you extra, useless, and obsolete, old-school mutants. Well, not me, personally.” He chuckled. “I brought some Reavers to help me with that bit.”

“Pierce,” Logan murmured, feigning a foggy mind on the subject. “Does that name sound familiar to you, Jean?”

Jean faux-considered it for a moment before replying, “Maybe. Is that the guy we dropped off at the local police station last night? With a copy of Gabriela’s videos showing his crimes not-so-gently duct-taped around his abdomen?”

Rice bristled, losing his patience. “You will pay for that choice,” he assured them.

“Is this getting a little old for you?” Logan asked Jean dryly. “I mean, I’m an old-school, obsolete mutant myself, but even for me, this is dragging on a bit.”

Jean smiled grimly, her eyes flashing bright gold as she ascended into the air. “Couldn’t agree more, darlin’.”

Rice opened his mouth to say something insulting, but they would never learn his next quip. With one simple flourish of her hands, Jean caused every Reaver to hit the ground unconscious. Rice, meanwhile, was frozen on the spot.

“I can’t move!” he shouted, desperately trying to fidget but finding himself quite incapable of doing so.

“That’s right,” Jean explained, floating back down to earth and approaching Rice. “I erased the others’ memories and they’ll be out for at least an hour. As for you, Dr. Rice, you have information about Transigen’s plans that we need.”

“Once we have that info, I guess we won’t really need him anymore, though,” Logan pointed out.

“I guess not. So it will be up to Dr. Rice how he wants his departure to go. Memory wipe? Outright death? Or a nice little jaunt to the policia like his friend Pierce? Depends how communicative you’re inclined to be.”

Rice scowled, aware of his felled assassin crew in the background. “What do you want to know?”

“Next time, am I gonna get in on the action?” Logan asked, scratching his head.

Jean grinned. “Some situations call for a Wolverine, and others are more of a Phoenix thing.”

***************************************************************************************

“At least we don’t have to worry about Transigen coming after us or getting to the kids before we can,” Logan said in casual conversation to Jean a few hours later. He leaned over in the car and firmly pushed Rice out of the car with one foot. Rice hit the ground hard, screaming expletives, no longer paralyzed but quite incapable of preventing justice from being carried out. Several police officers came running out of the station to find yet another villain tied up with a usb drive taped to him.

Logan hit the gas and peeled out, but the police had no real intention of giving chase. They were too grateful to have another violent criminal with a far-reaching, insidious record, in custody.

They went home and picked up Laura, eager to hit the road and get to the other children. It was quite the trip. At every single rest stop, Laura absolutely had to get out of the car and use the coin-operated amusement rides. While at first it was because of Laura’s own adamance, eventually it became at Logan’s insistence. He never tired of seeing the girl’s face light up at such a simple diversion, making it all too tragically apparent that she had never had much of a chance to enjoy the basic playtime that all children should have. He felt a strong, compelling urge within himself to make it his responsibility now — to ensure that neither Laura, nor her friends, were deprived of the rest of their childhood.

Logan would not let them be forced into adulthood, or worse, pushed into violence by brutal circumstance.

He would protect them and their innocence at all costs.

Jean stood at a little distance, just watching Logan watching Laura, knowing that the father-daughter bond between the two was growing and that it was exactly what both of them needed to heal.

After they established their standard witty repartee — Laura’s contribution being her priceless facial expressions and gestures — at a few diners and while driving for hours on end, they finally arrived at Eden.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Logan murmured as they walked up to the tall, gate-enclosed community in the thick forest. It looked exactly like the comic book panel. “I guess fairy tales really do come true.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jean said. Before they could try and figure out how to ring this place’s doorbell, they were set upon by several weapon-bearing youths, whose hostile and protective expressions disappeared once they clapped eyes on Laura. The group hugs were tearful, and soon the trio of visitors were admitted into Eden’s inner sanctum.

The children showed Logan and Jean the maps and plans they’d come up with for escaping into Canada. “Okay,” Logan remarked, impressed. “That’s great. But where are you guys gonna go once you get to Canada? How are you going to survive there? Where are you planning to live?” 

It was still best that the kids get far away from any potential resurgence of Transigen. They couldn’t know that that beast was fully put down until some time passed. Yet they would need to do a lot better than this flimsy plan.

“We’ll find out when we get there” was the unanimous response, to which Jean clucked her tongue. 

“I’ve actually got an idea of how we can solve this predicament,” she revealed thoughtfully. “Hank McCoy’s got a lab up in Canada. Why don’t we head there? He’ll know of resources for mutants to get help, and once the children are safe and provided for, we can work on getting you cured of your adamantium poisoning, Logan.”

“Old Smurf-face, huh?” Logan chuckled. “Okay, let’s do it.”

*****************************************************************************************  
“Logan, Logan, Logan,” Hank smirked, pulling his old associate into a bear hug that caused Logan to step back, hands raised.

“Come on, man, we’re not really gonna hug, are we?” 

“Too late,” Hank winked, his bright blue eyes twinkling, his also-blue skin and hair a sign that he was going through one of his phases of accepting his beast self. Over the years, his defining struggle had been one of identity: was he beast or man? Logan hoped that he had finally understood how to be both, as peace lay in between. He paused and wondered when he himself had managed to put that same truth together. About a moment ago?

After exchanging pleasantries with Jean and sending the children to eat at the cafeteria, Hank told them about a newly opened school for mutant youths. “What, like the Xavier Academy from back in the day?” Logan raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Who’s running it?”

“I am,” said a slightly Southern accent-tinged female voice from right behind them.

“Rogue!” Logan exclaimed joyfully. He spun around to see her standing there, grinning like an idiot just as he was. She wore a business-like white blouse and pencil skirt, her white-streaked hair flowing in waves over her shoulders. 

“I didn’t know what ever happened to you, Logan,” Rogue said through her tears as they stepped back from their greeting hug. “I was so glad when Jean told us she was going to find you.” She took a deep breath and held Jean’s hand fondly, with a kind smile.

“How’s the Professor?”

They all sat down together and talked for hours about all they’d been through, the highs and lows of trying to piece life back together after their kind had almost become extinct. In time, the children wandered in and listened to the haunting, epic tales being spun by Hank, Rogue, Logan and Jean, their eyes huge with fascination and growing hope.

“We have every reason to believe that the mutant gene will reassert itself more frequently as time goes on,” Hank explained, adjusting his glasses. “Transigen’s mutant suppression concoctions are never going to be strong enough to repress something so fierce that just keeps finding a way to, to…”

“To kick the ass of every biological weapon forged to negate it,” Rogue finished. “And believe me, we’re sure.”

“There have been new mutant births and plenty of them,” Hank elaborated. “They’ve been hidden by their parents out of fear, like in the old days, before Charles changed so much of the way we were perceived. We may be back at square one, but we’re not defeated. When Rogue began searching for students, her investigation turned up more than enough to fill her classrooms, and this is just the beginning. The new beginning.”

“How have you been finding the students with no Cerebro?” Logan had to ask.

“Slowly. Very slowly,” Rogue explained, pulling a face. “It’s been exhausting. I’ve basically been running a large scale private investigation into any behavior indicating a young person might be exhibiting mutant qualities. Relying on news story snippets, rumors, whispers, networks of friends in the know…but it was worth it!”

“I’m so happy for you,” Jean enthused, “And so relieved that the children have someplace where they can be nurtured.” Logan nodded and Jean’s thoughts reverted back to their own more personal problem. “While we’re here, Hank, there’s another issue to discuss. It’s about Logan’s health.”

Once the children — all except for Laura, who was intrigued by the prospect of the school, but ended up clinging to Logan and Jean for dear life — were sent to Rogue’s establishment, work began in earnest on curing Logan from the liquid metal infecting his whole body.

Day in and day out, Hank and Jean labored, running what seemed like countless experiments on Logan until they happened to stumble upon a formula that just might do the trick. “This could be it!” Jean declared in a hushed voice that failed to underplay her excitement and optimism.

“Jean, even if it’s not,” Logan told her, stroking her cheek as he sat up on the lab table, hooked up to machines tracking his vitals, “I’ll be grateful for the time we’ve had together. Nothing could ever make me happier than knowing that we were in love and we were together. And that, even if it was just for a little while, we were a family, with Laura.”

He leaned in and kissed her tear-streaked face, first her cheeks and then her lips. Jean pressed her forehead lightly to his and closed her eyes. She sent out a thought then -- to whom she didn't even know -- God, any Powers-that-Be? It was the deepest kind of simultaneous prayer, hope, and demand she’d possibly ever felt the need to invoke.

Logan was injected with the formula and assigned to bed rest, which of course he spent pacing and not resting at all, dragging the IV stand all over with him as Jean, Hank and Laura urged him to lie down.

Finally, after two hours had passed with no change in his vitals, Logan bent over all of a sudden in pain, then collapsed, caught instantly by Jean and Hank, who carried him to bed. Laura, in a sudden panic, climbed onto the cot and scrambled to Logan’s side, taking his hand in her much smaller one. “Daddy,” Laura whispered, speaking for the first time that Jean had ever heard her do so. “Daddy.”

A few minutes passed in silent anticipation. Although he was unconscious, his heartbeat and breathing were steady, which boded well. Finally, his eyelids fluttered open and he stared up at them. “Did I hear you *talk*?” He asked Laura in a hoarse, tired voice. Everyone laughed.

Jean and Hank did some tests and confirmed that the poisoning had left his system, and he was indeed cured of the infection. The bonding of the adamantium to his skeleton was forever, but it would cause him no further peril.

Laura gave her father a hug, careful not to squeeze too tight in his still weakened state. “Gracias,” she said out loud, staring upward. 

“Why are you saying thank you?” Logan asked, patting her head affectionately.

“Porque…” Laura searched her mind for the words in English to express herself. “You came back to me.” She looked over at Jean and smiled, total trust glowing in her features. “To us.”


	5. Epilogue: Six Months Later

Logan pushed the iron gate open as he and Laura walked hand-in-hand onto the grounds of Anna Marie’s School for Gifted Children.

“No me gusta,” Laura fussed, transparently about fifty percent dishonest, frowning around at the lush, gorgeously maintained gardens in front of the school, the big, beautiful fountain, and the prestigious-looking building. 

“Liar,” Logan accused, ringing the bell and grinning at the mischievous-looking young male mutant who answered. “Got a new student for the Prof,” he explained. The kid gave him a wink and vanished, reappearing with Rogue by his side.

“Nicky, we’ve talked about not snatching people and apparating without warning,” Rogue chided, stepping away from the boy before he went charging down the hallway. She rolled her eyes. “I could tell you that isn’t a normal part of life around here, but…”

Logan laughed. “Only as it should be. Laura, you remember Rogue…”

Laura nodded solemnly, so he crouched down by her side and took her hand. “Sweetheart, you know we’ll be staying nearby if you need anything. You’ll be coming home to us every night. But you need an education, and you need to learn how to keep your abilities in check, use them only when absolutely necessary.”

Laura had been through so much trauma and loneliness that she’d become very clingy with Logan and Jean. Frankly, he didn’t mind it, even identified with the way she felt — having a family after lacking one for so long, through so many ordeals? Hell yeah, it got to you in all the best ways not to be alone anymore.

She smiled at his reassurances. “Is Mommy cooking tonight?” Laura asked, swinging his hand. Rogue raised her eyebrows at the way she referred to Jean and broke into a big smile of her own. 

“Yes, she is. Your favorite dish,” Logan winced humorously. Jean had insisted on cooking for them at least every other night, and was highly invested in learning to master the art. Yet she unfailingly burned every single piece of meat she cooked. As it fortuitously turned out, Laura happened to love burned steak.

He slapped Laura a high five and handed her a backpack. “Take good care of my girl,” he winked at Rogue, knowing without a doubt that she would. Taking the responsibility seriously, Rogue nodded, a silent promise to watch after and nurture Laura.

Logan went back to the house that he and Jean were renting while she continued to work with Hank in the lab. Meanwhile, Logan had been training adult mutants out of the facility, ones who had never come to grips with or accepted their powers. Transigen’s attacks on the mutant population had gone a long way towards sending existing homo superiors into hiding, but the evil scientists’ day was over — hopefully, forever.

“Do you think a little Worcester sauce would help?” Jean asked from her perch on a chair in the living room, a cookbook open on her lap. She bit her lip, deep in thought. Logan smiled at the sight of the mighty, unflappable Phoenix slightly bewildered by a recipe. Still, this was yet another challenge she was determined to conquer. 

“Definitely,” he lied, kissing her before sitting down on the couch beside her. 

“We got a postcard from Charles,” Jean said brightly, handing him the mail.

“He’s on cloud nine,” Logan chuckled, perusing Charles’ somewhat confused but extremely enthusiastic description of his sea travels. “Thank you again for reuniting him with Raven.”

Jean had reached out through Rogue’s connections in the mutant community to track down the ever-elusive Mystique. Once Raven learned that her dear old friend (and regrettably occasional foe, though that was long forgiven and put behind them) was gravely ill and rapidly deteriorating, she was determined to be there for him in his final days. Touchingly, she even altered her appearance to look as she would in human form, at the same age as Charles. As she would look if her mutant abilities had not rendered her agelessly the same, an azure enigma to most but a much loved friend to Charles. Then she chartered a boat and took him out to see a little bit of the world, providing care, company, countless laughs, and someone well aware of his more dangerous potential who could keep a very close eye on him.

“I still can’t believe we really did it,” Logan shook his head as Jean came over and sat on his lap, putting her arms around his neck as his own circled her waist. “We actually won. We actually get to be happy.”

“We’re mutants, Logan. There will always be another problem, another battle, around the corner. But if we’re together, I do believe there’s nothing we can’t face. I just wish I’d figured it out earlier. I see now, though, that in a nutshell…that’s life. We’re so lucky to have each other now.”

In an uncharacteristically, unabashed moment of sentiment for which he felt no shame at all, Logan whispered lovingly, “Now, and forever.”


End file.
